The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 62

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Thought I'd just sit here and wait for them to come back and fetch me

take me in and hand me over to a bunch of nigger police aching to get

their hands on a white man.

Well, I got news for you, Mr. Fancy-talking Curry!

He rummaged in the cubbyhole and then slammed it shut.

Okay, they're not there. Let's try under the seats. The border

is not guarded, might take me three or four days to get through to Fort

Rosebery, but when I do I'll have me a pocket full of diamonds and

there's a direct air service out to Ndola and the rest of the world.

Then we start living!

There was nothing under the seats except a greasy dustcoated jack and

wheel spanner. Hendry turned his attention to the floorboards.

Pity I'll have to leave that bastard C'brry. I had plans for him.

There's a guy who really gets to me. So goddam cock-sure of himself.

One of them. Makes you feel you're shit - fancy talk, pretty face, soft

hands. Christ, I hate him.

Viciously he tore the rubber mats off the floor and the dust made him

cough.

Been to university, makes him think he's something special. The bastard.

I should have fixed him long ago that night at the road bridge I nearly

gave it to him in the dark. Nobody would have known, just a mistake. I

shoulda done it then. I shoulda done it at Port

Reprieve when he ran out across the road to the office block. Big bloody

hero.

Big lover. Bet he had everything he ever wanted, bet his Daddy gave him

all the money he could use. And he looks at you like that, like you

crawled out of rotting meat.

Hendry straightened up and gripped the steering wheel, his jaws chewing

with the strength of his hatred. He stared out of the windscreen.

Shermaine Cartier walked past the front of the truck.

She had a towel and a pink plastic toilet bag in her hand; the pistol

swung against her leg as she moved.

Sergeant Jacque stood up from the cooking fire and moved to intercept

her. They talked, arguing, then Shermaine touched the pistol at her side

and laughed. A worried frown creased Jacque's black face and he shook

his head dubiously. Shermaine laughed again, turned from him and set off

down the road towards the stream. Her hair, caught carelessly at her

neck with a ribbon, hung down her back on to the rose-coloured shirt she

wore and the heavy canvas holster emphasized the unconsciously

provocative swing of her hips. She went out of sight down the steep bank

of the stream.

Wally Hendry chuckled and then licked his lips with the quick-darting

tip of his tongue.

"This is going to make it perfect," he whispered. "They couldn't have

done things to Suit me better if they'd spent a week working it out."

Eagerly he turned back to his search for the diamonds.

Leaning forward he thrust his hand up behind the dashboard of the truck

and it brushed against the bunch of canvas bags that hung from the mass

of concealed wires.

"Come to Uncle Wally." He jerked them loose and, holding them in his

lap, began checking their contents.

The third bag he opened contained the gem stones.

"Lovely, lovely grub," he whispered at the dull glint and sparkle in the

depths of the bag. Then he closed the drawstring, stuffed the bag into

the pocket of his battle-jacket and buttoned the flap. He dropped the

bags of industrial diamonds on to the floor and kicked them under the

seat, picked up his rifle and stepped down out of the truck.

Three or four gendarmes looked up curiously at him as he passed the

cooking fires. Hendry rubbed his stomach and pulled a face.

"Too much meat last night!" The gendarme who understood English laughed

and translated into French. They all laughed and one of them called

something in a dialect that Hendry did not understand. They watched him

walk away among the trees.

As soon as he was out of sight of the camp Hendry started to run,

circling back towards the stream.

"This is going to be a pleasure!" He laughed aloud.

Fifty yards below the drift where the road crossed the stream

Shermaine found a shallow pool. There were reeds with fluffy heads

around it and a small beach of white river sand, black boulders,

polished round and glossy smooth, the water almost blood warm and so

clear that she could see a shoal of fingerlings nibbling at the green

algae that coated the boulders beneath the surface.

She stood barefooted in the sand and looked around carefully, but the

reeds screened her, and she had asked Jacque not to let any of his men

come down to the river while she was there.

She undressed, dropped her clothes across one of the black boulders and

with a cake of soap in her hand waded out into the pool and lowered

herself until she sat with the water up to her neck and the sand

pleasantly rough under her naked behind.

She washed her hair first and then lay stretched out with the water

moving gently over her, soft as the caress of silk.

Growing bold the tiny fish darted in and nibbled at her skin, tickling,

so that she gasped and splashed at them.

At last she ducked her head under the surface and, with the water

streaming out of her hair into her eyes, she groped her way back to the

bank.

As she stooped, still half blinded, for her towel Wally Hendry's hand

closed over her mouth and his other arm circled her waist from behind.

"One squeak out of you and I'll wring your bloody neck." He spoke

hoarsely into her ear. She could smell his breath, warm and sour in her

face. "Just pretend I'm old Bruce then both of us will enjoy

it." And he chuckled.

Sliding quickly over her hip his hand moved downwards and the shock of

it galvanized her into frantic struggles.

Holding her easily Hendry kept on chuckling.

She opened her mouth suddenly and one of his fingers went in

between her teeth. She bit with all her strength and felt the skin break

and tasted blood in her mouth.

"You bitch!" Hendry jerked his hand away and she opened her mouth to

scream, but the hand swung back, clenched, into the side of her face,

knocking her head across. The scream never reached her lips for

he hit her again and she felt herself falling.

Stunned by the blows, lying in the sand, she could not believe it was

happening, until she felt his weight upon her and his knee forced

cruelly between hers.

Then she started to struggle again, trying to twist away from his mouth

and the smell of his breath.

"No, no, no." She repeated it over an dover, her eyes shut tightly so

she did not have to see that face above her, and her head rolling from

side to side in the sand. He was so strong, so immensely powerful.

"No," she said, and then, "Ooah!" at the pain, the tearing stinging pain

within, and the thrusting heaviness above.

And through the pounding, grunting, thrusting nightmare she could smell

him and feel the sweat drip from him and splash into her upturned

unprotected face.

It lasted forever, and then suddenly the weight was gone and she opened

her eyes.

He stood over her, fumbling with his Clothing, and there was a dullness

in his expression. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and she

saw the fingers were trembling.

His voice when he spoke was tired and disinterested.

"I've had better." Swiftly Shennaine rolled over and reached for the

pistol that lay on top of her clothes. Hendry stepped forward with all

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